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I'd like to see a better programming language. All of the existing languages involve accepting certain trade-offs. Of course maybe no "perfect" language can e

by tgflynn 16y ago

I'd like to see a better programming language. All of the existing languages involve accepting certain trade-offs. Of course maybe no "perfect" language can exist but until someone proves that there's always hope. For me the ideal language would : - Support OO, imperative and functional paradigms - Compile to fully optimized machine code with efficiency comparable to that of C - Provide language support for numerical multidimensional arrays and linear algebra with a syntax comparable to Matlab - Support list comprehensions - Provide map,list and set types similar to those of Python - Support dynamic typing - Support optional static typing, and contracts - Provide standard libraries with breadth of functionality comparable to those of Java but simpler API's (more like Python) - Provide a mechanism for efficient compile-time parametrization of algorithms, like C++ templates - Support free-form (ie. whitespace independent) syntax - Provide a high quality cross-platform GUI toolkit with support for OpenGL - Provide an interactive graphical environment for experimentation and data analysis - Provide a dataset abstraction similar to R data frames - Be supported by a high-quality IDE and debugger Of course that's a lot to ask for, but it would be nice to be able to do everything with a single unified syntax and environment.

jamii 16y ago
Ocaml hits most of the points on your list, if you can bring yourself to use a statically typed language. > Support OO, imperative and functional paradigms Yep. Objects aren't used all that often but they are fully supported and can do some things that are difficult in Java or C++ eg http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual007.html#toc39 http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual007.html#to... > Compile to fully optimized machine code with efficiency comparable to that of C Not quite, but ocamlopt generates pretty damn fast code and, more importantly, has very predictable performance. Ocaml makes a pretty good systems language as demonstrated by the recent Mirage paper: http://anil.recoil.org/papers/2010-hotcloud-lamp.pdf http://anil.recoil.org/papers/2010-hotcloud-lamp.pdf > Provide language support for numerical multidimensional arrays and linear algebra with a syntax comparable to Matlab No, but this would make a good Jane Street summer project. Ocaml has extensible syntax via camlp4 and bindings to R, GSL and Matlab (no octave bindings for some reason). > Support list comprehensions Yes, as a syntax extension. http://batteries.forge.ocamlcore.org/doc.preview:batteries-beta1/html/extensions.html#Comprehension http://batteries.forge.ocamlcore.org/doc.preview:batteries-b... > Provide map,list and set types similar to those of Python The syntax is not as nice but apart from that: http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Map.Make.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Map.Make.h... http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Hashtbl.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Hashtbl.ht... http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/List.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/List.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Set.S.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Set.S.html > Support dynamic typing Nope. You can circumvent the type system using Obj but its generally not advisable. > Support optional static typing, and contracts Static typing - yes. Contracts - see eg http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.157.5372&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.157... http://perso.eleves.bretagne.ens-cachan.fr/~dagand/opis/opis_presentation.pdf http://perso.eleves.bretagne.ens-cachan.fr/~dagand/opis/opis... > Provide standard libraries with breadth of functionality comparable to those of Java but simpler API's (more like Python) No. Ocaml Batteries is a start but nowhere near as broad as Python or Java. > Provide a mechanism for efficient compile-time parametrization of algorithms, like C++ templates Not just compile time specialization but multi-stage compilation via MetaOcaml. See eg http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.73.2541&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.73.... > Support free-form (ie. whitespace independent) syntax Yep, although there are some issues with the syntax eg dangling-else-like problems with nested matches. > Provide a high quality cross-platform GUI toolkit with support for OpenGL Well tested bingdings to Tk, Gtk and OpenGL. > Provide an interactive graphical environment for experimentation and data analysis None that I know of. I tend to use matplotlib and opengl interactively from the repl but its not up to the standards of mathematica etc. > Provide a dataset abstraction similar to R data frames I dont think so. I haven't used R much so I don't know exactly what features are missing. > Be supported by a high-quality IDE and debugger There are a couple of IDEs but none of them seem to be very well polished. Ocaml-mode and emacs is generally the way to go. The time-travelling ocaml debugger is pretty amazing. You can also compile with support for gdb for low level debugging.

by tgflynn 16y ago

jamii 16y ago

Ocaml hits most of the points on your list, if you can bring yourself to use a statically typed language. > Support OO, imperative and functional paradigms Yep. Objects aren't used all that often but they are fully supported and can do some things that are difficult in Java or C++ eg http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual007.html#toc39 http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual007.html#to... > Compile to fully optimized machine code with efficiency comparable to that of C Not quite, but ocamlopt generates pretty damn fast code and, more importantly, has very predictable performance. Ocaml makes a pretty good systems language as demonstrated by the recent Mirage paper: http://anil.recoil.org/papers/2010-hotcloud-lamp.pdf http://anil.recoil.org/papers/2010-hotcloud-lamp.pdf > Provide language support for numerical multidimensional arrays and linear algebra with a syntax comparable to Matlab No, but this would make a good Jane Street summer project. Ocaml has extensible syntax via camlp4 and bindings to R, GSL and Matlab (no octave bindings for some reason). > Support list comprehensions Yes, as a syntax extension. http://batteries.forge.ocamlcore.org/doc.preview:batteries-beta1/html/extensions.html#Comprehension http://batteries.forge.ocamlcore.org/doc.preview:batteries-b... > Provide map,list and set types similar to those of Python The syntax is not as nice but apart from that: http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Map.Make.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Map.Make.h... http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Hashtbl.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Hashtbl.ht... http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/List.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/List.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Set.S.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Set.S.html > Support dynamic typing Nope. You can circumvent the type system using Obj but its generally not advisable. > Support optional static typing, and contracts Static typing - yes. Contracts - see eg http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.157.5372&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.157... http://perso.eleves.bretagne.ens-cachan.fr/~dagand/opis/opis_presentation.pdf http://perso.eleves.bretagne.ens-cachan.fr/~dagand/opis/opis... > Provide standard libraries with breadth of functionality comparable to those of Java but simpler API's (more like Python) No. Ocaml Batteries is a start but nowhere near as broad as Python or Java. > Provide a mechanism for efficient compile-time parametrization of algorithms, like C++ templates Not just compile time specialization but multi-stage compilation via MetaOcaml. See eg http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.73.2541&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.73.... > Support free-form (ie. whitespace independent) syntax Yep, although there are some issues with the syntax eg dangling-else-like problems with nested matches. > Provide a high quality cross-platform GUI toolkit with support for OpenGL Well tested bingdings to Tk, Gtk and OpenGL. > Provide an interactive graphical environment for experimentation and data analysis None that I know of. I tend to use matplotlib and opengl interactively from the repl but its not up to the standards of mathematica etc. > Provide a dataset abstraction similar to R data frames I dont think so. I haven't used R much so I don't know exactly what features are missing. > Be supported by a high-quality IDE and debugger There are a couple of IDEs but none of them seem to be very well polished. Ocaml-mode and emacs is generally the way to go. The time-travelling ocaml debugger is pretty amazing. You can also compile with support for gdb for low level debugging.